Rio locals have no desire to tackle crime, Roy must eradicate aimless long-balls, England should be proud of Ashley Cole... and Denilson just sums up Arsenal

Months ago my girlfriend Amanda and I decided to take time off after a busy season and head to Brazil for the first time to take in the England friendly. Being mugged at knifepoint less than 24 hours after stepping off the plane wasn’t part of the itinerary.

We arrived in Rio de Janeiro late on Saturday night and after a walk on the Copacabana, went back to our hotel overlooking the beach on the Avenida Atlantica.

We were up early to meet up with Sky’s Chris Kamara, Rio-based English football journalist Tim Vickery and a load of England fans at a bar in Ipanema and then off to the game.

Setting: Rio's Maracana Stadium hosted a friendly between Brazil and England before the World Cup next year

In attendance: MailOnline columnist Adrian Durham was at the Maracana on Sunday

The Maracana was wonderful – all the scare stories were exactly that. It’s a fantastic place to watch football and there was a brilliant atmosphere both inside and outside the stadium.

The game was typical England – frustrating and brilliant but not in equal measure. Getting out of the ground was painful but will probably have been made easier by this time next year.

We jumped on a coach full of fans travelling with the official England members’ club and were dropped off across the road from the Copacabana beach at around 7.30pm Rio time.

We said goodbyes to various people and then Amanda and I started a 10-minute walk to our hotel.

Night had already fallen (this is Brazilian winter) so it was dark, but there were plenty of people around, and so many come up to sell you things or beg for money. Usually a polite no is enough for them to move on here.

On guard: Brazil's security and safety has been under the microscope in the lead up to the World Cup

Then a well-dressed man in his 20s came to me and in broken English asked for the time. I looked at my watch – which cost me £5 from a market stall – and told him. He then started walking alongside me on my right, the opposite side to Amanda, and asked me for money so I thought he was a beggar.

I politely said no, at which point he grabbed my shoulder. I reacted by telling him to get off and I lifted his hand off me. He raised his voice and showed me a knife he was hiding in the palm of his hand, he then pushed the tip of the blade against my arm – I could definitely feel it.

I turned to Amanda – who hadn’t seen the knife and who thought he was just an aggressive beggar – and calmly told her we needed to cross the road. So I quickly steered her towards the busy traffic where it was well lit and everyone could see us. The guy’s bottle went, and he pushed me towards the cars and fled empty-handed.

We continued on to the hotel, I felt shaken up but calm.

I asked a woman working at the hotel – a massive international chain – how I should go about reporting the incident to the police and described the sequence of events. She said it wasn’t really worth it because 'it happens all the time in Rio.' She then suggested wearing no obviously expensive jewellery and not flashing cash around, the kind of streetwise stuff most of us who have lived and worked in big cities are aware of anyway.

Maybe in a bid to lighten the mood she then made a joke about how I was lucky not to get run over. It wasn’t even mildly amusing.

I’m not the kind of guy who flashes cash around, or who is ostentatious in any way. I wear bad shirts and have a cheap watch. It was just a random attack and it could have happened to anyone.

Street lighting and police presence need to be stepped up dramatically before the World Cup - and then the Olympics - come here. Attitudes need to change – locals clearly just accept that crime happens and have no desire to tackle it.

But when you’ve got a government prepared to spend £8.5billion on hosting a World Cup while two million people live in over a thousand slums here in Rio de Janeiro alone, it’s clear the country’s priorities and morals are questionable.

I spent five weeks in Poland and
Ukraine last year, and before that five weeks in South Africa at the
2010 World Cup – both trips were preceded by warnings of how dangerous
it could be, and the crime I was likely to witness. Nothing happened on
either trip.

But less than a day into my first visit to Rio de Janeiro, and a year before the World Cup, I was mugged at knifepoint.

Out in force: A military ship patrols the bay in front of the Copacabana beach

I wouldn’t put anyone off coming here, but I would warn people to be extra careful. Marginalizing the poor for years has had some serious knock-on effects in this city.

For me personally, I’ve struggled through some tough situations to get to this point in my life. No loser with a knife is going to stop me enjoying myself.

I am an England fan. I love watching England. I travelled 5,750 miles and paid a fortune to watch England play Brazil in the Maracana. And I would happily do it again (apart from the mugging at knifepoint), as would hundreds of others who made the trip.

All I ask is Roy Hodgson lets players play.

Defensive: Roy Hodgson's England team were on the back foot for large periods of the first half on Sunday

I’m not criticising him for using two banks of four against Ireland. I’m not criticising him for using a bank of four behind a bank of five here in Rio.

But after the first half of this prestigious game, I felt cheated.

It looked like the plan in that first 45 was to ask Joe Hart to smack the ball out to the touchline halfway down the pitch. Presumably this was meant for someone’s head.My MailOnline colleague Martin Keown criticised Hart’s kicking but Hodgson was asking him, when under pressure from Brazilian strikers, to hit an inch-perfect 45 yard pass to a team-mate time after time.

The net result was a hoof upfield that either went out of play, or resulted in a fightball. We ended up losing possession all the time. That is not a good plan. The Brazil fans booed it and the England fans don’t want it. If opponents only need to press high to force England to go long, then Roy, I’m afraid your ideas are too limited and you have played right into the hands of critics who know far less than you.

Screamers: Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Wayne Rooney both scored from long range to put England ahead

The manager deserves credit for a brave second-half switch – Jones to right back, and Oxlade-Chamberlain’s arrival in theory weakened the midfield, but in practice gave Lampard and Carrick someone to pass to and sent England surging forward with spectacular results.

In reality England could, and should have been beaten by half-time. Only Hart’s world-class goalkeeping saved Hodgson from a barrage of questions about what on earth his gameplan was in that first half.

The starting back four – Glen Johnson, Leighton Baines, Gary Cahill and Phil Jagielka – are all reliable with the ball at their feet. So too the midfield five – James Milner, Theo Walcott, Frank Lampard, Michael Carrick and Phil Jones – all comfortable on the ball.

Trio: James Milner, Phil Jagielka and Phil Jones in action at the Maracana on Sunday

So the manager must trust them to play. They all need to be brave and want the ball and they all need to be on the move constantly finding space. They all need to think quickly but they are all capable - if the manager sends them out on to the field with the right mindset.

As one England fan behind me said at half-time: 'I don’t mind coming all this way and seeing us lose as long as we try to play a bit of football.'

And as the great Michael Jordan said: 'I can accept failure but I can’t accept not trying.'

They all play football for their clubs, none of them are told to smack it long in the Premier League, so why make them play like that for England?

Pleasing: England settled for a credible 2-2 draw against Brazil in Rio

In the end the 90 minutes summed up what it’s like to be an England fan – at times we were awful and looked well beaten, then they gave us hope with flashes of brilliance, and then we had to settle for less than what we had hoped for in our wildest dreams.

But even it means watching 4-4-2, even if it means enduring Gary Lineker somehow failing to force the ball over the line in 1986 against Argentina, England fans will never give up.

At the moment it’s a land of hope, not glory.

A few footnotes from the England games over the past week. As far as I can recall Ashley Cole has never dubiously pulled out of an England squad, and he has been consistently brilliant for the national side.

After rightly being given the captaincy he flew all the way to Brazil, sat on the bench, and never moaned once. He then played superbly when he came on for the injured Leighton Baines. We should be proud of players like Cole in England. He described captaining England as 'living the little boy’s dream'. I can forget any mistakes he might have made off the field when he speaks from the heart like that about England.

Centurion: Ashley Cole (left) replaced Leighton Baines (right) having started on the bench

And whoever has Wayne Rooney in their squad next season has a very good player. He is gifted – he has technique, he looks after the ball, he runs all day for the team, and he is actually a brilliant footballer. I wonder if it will be a case of United fans not knowing how good he is until he’s gone.

And one more thing, England are lucky to have Joe Hart. Very lucky.

Neymar showed us a fraction of what he can do in the game at the Maracana. Over here the TV stations have been full of him as he has sealed his switch to Barcelona, flying over to Spain after the England game and ball-juggling for thousands of fans at the Nou Camp.

He is well-loved by the general public here, he is on every other advertisement on TV endorsing products, and at times he has expressed himself on the pitch which has justified loose comparisons with some of the Brazilian greats of the past.

New star: Neymar was unveiled as a Barcelona player at the Nou Camp on Monday

Welcome: The Brazilian signed a five-year deal with the Catalans after joining from Santos

Next year Neymar is expected to lift Brazil out of the mundane and be the key man as they fight to win the World Cup on home soil for the first time.

Many, including Johan Cruyff, doubt whether Neymar can play and flourish in the same team as Messi. Or will he struggle in the shadow of the little Argentine, as Eto’o, Ibrahimovic and Villa have, to varying degrees, in the recent past? Time will tell, but it’s a mouth-watering prospect if the pair can click. I cannot wait for next season!

The man who sums up Arsene Wenger’s last seven years at Arsenal was sent off for deliberate handball playing here in Brazil this weekend. He was also finally put out of his Arsenal misery.

The most memorable thing about Denilson’s time with the Gunners was the embarrassing way they announced his name when reading out the line-ups at the Emirates. The announcer would shout: 'DENIL……' and the crowd would roar back: '…..SON.'

Football tourists loved it, football purists cringed.

Wenger signing the Brazilian midfielder was bizarre. As a teenager he hardly played for Sao Paulo, and if someone tells you he was a key part of their success when they won the World Club Championship in 2005 (beating Liverpool 1-0 in the final) they’re wrong – he didn’t play a minute.

Back to Brazil: Denilson rejoined former club Sao Paulo on loan after struggling to make an impact for Arsenal

So Denilson arrived at Arsenal for £3m in 2006 but was never special. From summer 2011 onwards he was still an Arsenal player, but on loan back at Sao Paulo (he has actually won a trophy there during his loan spell – more than his old team-mates did back in north London).

The former Brazilian Under 17 captain’s talent either didn’t exist or was completely flattened out by Wenger. To date, Denilson has never played for the full national team.

Denilson is one of many thought to have earned wages of around £45-50k a week at Arsenal. And yet they refused to pay Ashley Cole an extra £5k a week. Bizarre way to run a club. Denilson even had a year left on his Arsenal contract but it seems he has had that paid up.

Gunners fans have had enough of experiments like Denilson, Arsenal need to sign Rooney, make at least one other serious signing, or offer fans a full refund on their ridiculously priced season tickets.

You know when your girlfriend promises you everything, and shows you a good time, and you return that love in full – almost unconditionally? And while others criticised her you defended her even though you knew deep down she had done wrong.

But in the end she went cold and told you she quite fancies seeing how things are with someone else.

That’s Luis Suarez with Liverpool fans that is.

Moving on: Luis Suarez admitted he wants to leave Liverpool

See the girlfriend who was fantastic and made you feel special? Emotional highs with this girl. Somehow she let it go to her head, started thinking she was too good for you and it all went wrong.

She left, and then a few years later you decided to get back together. Only trouble is, she’s been through other lovers in the meantime and had better times with one of them, and so have you – in fact your lovers have matched the highs she gave you, and one even exceeded them.

Even if she does those things others did with you, it just won’t feel special any more.